Where Volatiles Meet
by The Author's Mighty Pen
Summary: Anna Smith is a British Intelligence operative assigned to work in Ireland on a kidnapping investigation (Marigold Gregson). She is partnered with John Bates and his partner, Tom Branson, to find the perpetrator before he strikes again.
1. A Series of Fortunate Events

She frowned at the drink, lifting it to the light before leaving it on the bar. Someone slipped and she only just avoided them knocking her off the barstool. A hand lifted the man by the collar and pulled him away before taking his place.

"Sorry about my friend there. He's celebrating getting married on the weekend and I think he got a bit carried away with the native brew."

"Seems to happen here." She commented and noted the man's eyebrows raising.

"You're not from around here."

"What gave you that impression?"

"Your accent's a bit more North than I expected."

"A lot of places have a north," She shrugged, "But you're right, I'm not from Dublin or even this island."

"I'm going to put my money on Yorkshire somewhere."

"Whitby, specifically." She extended her hand, "Anna Smith."

"John Bates, London."

"Really?"

"Well," He winced, "I was raised there by a mother from Belfast who's grandfather was from Aberdeen so I guess there's arguments to be had about it."

"Not from me." She nodded at the man John had moved from the bar. "If he's getting married then why's he drinking like it's his last night on earth?"

"There's a bit of nerves to it." John held up a hand for the man behind the counter to practically shouted his order over the noise of the room before turning back to her. "I was so soused before my wedding that I don't even remember the actually ceremony."

"I'll bet your wife loved that."

"She loved it when she divorced me."

"Oh," Anna cringed, "I'm sorry, that must've been awful."

"One of the best days of my life actually." He pulled at his drink, "The day I signed those papers and freed myself of the shackles I got drunk all over again."

"And since?"

"I've not taken hard alcohol." He shrugged, "No reason to bury pain that no longer exists if you get my meaning."

"I think I do."

John nodded toward her drink, "Not your brew?"

"It's…" She flailed a hand. "I've got to stay sharp."

"Planning on doing something tonight?"

"It's more tomorrow." Anna adjusted her legs on the bar stool, noting how John's eyes flitted toward the rise in her skirt a moment. "I need to make a good impression on some future coworkers that won't like that I'm coming."

"You seem pleasant enough."

"My personality isn't the problem so much as…" Anna bit her lip, "Sorry, I shouldn't be talking about this. It's still a bit hush-hush given the sensitive nature of it all and I don't want to ruin it before I've even begun."

"Then, from now on, no more talking about work." He raised his glass to her, "I'll be honest though, if it were me getting you as a new coworker I don't think I'd mind."

"You wouldn't see it as England invading Ireland?"

"Wouldn't have the time to since I'd be too busy admiring your eyes." John stopped, "I hope that didn't come off too creepy or awkward for you. I know that sometimes men can say things that-"

"I took it as a compliment, Mr. Bates."

"Oh," He grimaced, "Please, I'm off the clock and I refuse to have formal appellations when I'm at a bar."

"Alright then, _John_ ," She stressed with a smile, "Are you here as designated driver or just designated manager?"

"It does help to have someone making sure everyone's keeping their shit together doesn't it?" He grinned, finishing his drink and digging bills from his pocket to pay his tab. "But no, I already served my role as partner and wingman so I'm also heading back home to make sure I'm ready for tomorrow as well."

"Something big happening?"

"Just-" He waved his hand, "Someone thinks we can't do our job as well as they can and so there've assigned someone to take the project from us. It's bollocks but when it's come down the line what can you do?"

"Not much." Anna agreed and paid for her drink as well. "Would you find it too much of an imposition if I walked with you a beat. I think I could use a walk to clear my head of the fug in here."

"It'd be my pleasure." John held the door open and joined her in step on the street. "Is it your first time to Dublin?"

"Yes and it's unfortunate it's not holiday."

"Why's that?"

"I'm relatively sure the only parts of Dublin I'll be seeing, outside of the office where I'll be slaving away, are those skeezy parts where vagrants and degenerates go."

John snorted a laugh, "Deal with those types a lot do you?"

"It's part of the job."

"What's your job?" John shoved his hands into his pockets and turned to her but Anna only shrugged.

"I work in criminal psychology."

"So you're starting up at the University or something?"

"It's more of a consultancy."

"Well," John blew out a puff of air, "I guess your earlier comment about them not taking to you nosing in our their territory makes more sense."

"I'm an expert in my field."

"We're Irish, we tend not to care about that beyond 'English Invader'." They both laughed, stopping at the corner to wait for the light. "But, in all seriousness, just show them you're all you're cracked up to be. Earn their respect through hard work and a take-no-prisoners attitude."

"I don't want to conquer them."

"Like I said, we're Irish. We respond to strength." John led the way across the street, pausing briefly. "I don't suppose you'd like me to walk you to your hotel or something."

"I'm not quite ready for that kind of quiet yet." Anna flicked her gaze toward him, "You wouldn't find me horrible invasive if I asked for a coffee at yours would you?"

"It was actually the next offer on my mind." John swept his hand dramatically, "Right this way milady."

"Thank you kind sir." Anna chuckled, "Chivalry isn't dead."

"Not in my house anyway or my poor, deceased mother'd rise from the grave to put me in one of my own." John dug his keys from his jacket pocket and worked them into the door. "I'll assume you're a tea drinker mostly though."

"Why'd you say that?"

"Something about being British is we can't escape it." John pushed his door open and entered to turn on the lights before giving her space. "But I don't have any good tea in my house."

"But you've got coffee?"

"I like a good Irish coffee every now and then." He winked, shutting the door and shedding his jacket before holding out his hands awkwardly. "Do you want me to take your coat?"

"I'd like that very much since your house is rather pleasantly toasty." Anna handed her jacket over. "I don't suppose you've got the secret to that?"

"A good central heating system." John frowned, "Why?"

"My hotel's got a rather shitty one that coughs off in the middle and I ended up laying on three jumpers just to stop my fingers turning blue." Anna followed him into the kitchen as he set two glasses on the island. "It's part of the reason I went out at all."

"To get warm?" John started the coffee maker, making sure the right roast was in the top before pulling out other ingredients.

"And to not be alone. There's nothing more depressing, in my experience, than being alone in a hotel room in a new city."

"Do that often?"

Anna shrugged up a shoulder. "Often enough that I've gotten used to kicking myself out of my rooms to find something to do."

"Must be a lonely life, your consultancy." John turned at the sound of the coffee maker and poured it into both glasses before adding the right amount of whiskey, sugar, and cream to the top.

"It's got its ups and downs." Anna took hers, clinking glasses with John. "We'll see if your Irish coffee's as good as you claim."

"I never claimed it was good, only that I make it." He grinned over the top of his glass at her and Anna swallowed.

"I take back any negative review I planned to jab in your direction." Anna raised her glass, "This is fantastic."

"I hope it doesn't get you so soused you can't find your way home in a straight line."

"I may be small but I can hold my liquor." Anna set her glass to the side, staring at john with narrowed eyes. "How do you stand it?"

"Stand what?"

"Living alone here?" Anna opened her hands to the kitchen around them. "It's a beautiful house, don't get me wrong, but I couldn't bear living in it alone."

"It's all about what you're used to I guess." He leaned over the island. "Ever since my wife and I divorced it's been me in this house but I got used to the quiet a long time ago. It's all I wanted when we were married and now that I have it I probably relish it a bit too much."

"Really?"

"Really." John sighed, "It's one of those things you get so used to that when you've got a chance to change it, even for the better, you wonder if you even want to."

"For the better how?"

"Well," John scratched at the back of his head, "My friend from tonight, Tom, he keeps trying to set me up on these dates because he thinks it's tragic and embarrassing that I'm single and alone."

"And you don't like the women."

"They're nice girls and they've been pleasant but…" John shrugged, "I'm going to sound too picky but I can't seem to work up enough energy to like any of them enough to do more than a nice dinner and a film."

"Better than driving away any potential suitors with your dedication to your work." Anna leaned forward as well, resting her chin in her hand. "I think the idea that I study criminals for a living's a bit of a turn off too."

"How so?"

"No one wants to hear the top ten facts about the world's most notorious serial killers or gets excited that there's a conference in Lyon all about how to better find DNA from scraps of material." Anna shrugged, "It tends to ruin the romance when you drink wine and then taste it for possible poisons."

"Sounds a bit exhausting, I'll admit, but given that I work in the constabulary myself-"

"I thought they called you all the Guards here."

"Potato, potahto." John waved a hand to hush her and they sniggered. "I hope you're not laughing because you're a happy drunk."

"I am a happy drunk but, in this case, I'm not drunk." Anna stood, "I think I stole enough of your evening though."

"Wait," John stood, biting at his teeth a moment, "I don't want to sound like one of those guys who thinks he should only be nice because he'll gain something from it but I was wondering if I could give you a kiss before you leave?"

Anna smiled, "I think I'd rather enjoy that actually."

"Bear with me," He carefully placed his hands on her face, "I haven't kissed anyone in awhile."

"Neither have I so I guess we can practice together."

"You're already making me nervous."

He leaned forward so her next words whispered against his lips. "Well we can't have that now can we?"

Their lips met and Anna's fingers immediately moved to grip the back of his head and hold him in place. She smelled the coffee on his breath, could taste the sugar and cream on his tongue, and relished the fiery lick of the whiskey. Her body molded toward his as one of his hands slipped from her face to hold her hip until he broke the kiss.

"Wow." He breathed and Anna nodded her assent. "I'd say you don't need any practice."

"You either." Anna trailed her fingers in his hair. "And I know you wouldn't ask this, since you seem like the respectful and chivalrous type, but if I told you that I wouldn't mind a very indecent proposal what would you say?"

"That I have some condoms and a king-sized bed."

Anna grinned, pulling him closer, "Just the words I needed."

He guided her up his stairs, the two of them tripping slightly when they attempted an over enthusiastic kiss, but their giggles did not distract from the goal. They reached the door to his room and Anna already wanted his warm fingers moving higher up her shirt than the teasing forays he made just under the hem. John managed the knob so they could enter.

With the light from the foyer below they ignored the lights, lost in the tangle of tongues and the clash of lips. Anna slipped slightly, holding to John's arms, and laughed as he tumbled onto his bed. He took a moment, laughing with her until she reached down to pull her shirt over her head.

"You're beautiful Anna."

"Thank you." She leaned over, dropping her shirt on the floor, "I'd like to see if you're beautiful too."

"I'm-"

"Shh." Anna put her finger on his lips, "Let me decide that?"

John only managed a nod before she helped him lift his shirt over his head too. Her hands smoothed over his chest and worked her lips over his neck while his hands gripped for her hips. Anna gripped his shoulders and straddled his legs before taking his lips again.

They moaned into one another's mouths to the clink of belts and snapping buttons before Anna could grind herself over the comforting tent in his boxers. She smiled against his mouth, leaning into the tentative touch he applied to her breasts until he gained enough confidence to unclasp it at the back.

Keeping sight of his shadowed face, Anna leaned back and let her bra drop. John's jaw dropped to match the action before kissing over her breasts. Her fingers cut crescents into his skull when he sucked at a nipple before groaning at the lift of his hips to drive against her.

She pushed him back to the bed to remove her knickers and tug at his boxers. He lifted his hips, reaching over to his bedside table a moment while she dropped the fabric to the ground, and jarred her to reality with the rip of a package. They both paused until John rolled the condom in place and winked at her.

"Still want it?"

"Oh yes." Anna straddled him again, sinking down as both of them groaned.

"This may not last long."

"Not a problem for me." Anna rocked against him. "I'm just fine with this."

"Good." He ran his hands over her back, setting a pace with thrusts she tried to meet. "I promise round two'll be better."

"Then we'd better get over round one." Anna took his lips back.

John's hand moved to her nerves and Anna ground against him with her nails scoring over his shoulders and tugging at his hair. They panted, both running toward their end as quickly as they could, until John broke. Anna drove herself to follow him before they both collapsed together.

She rolled onto her back and closed her eyes until she managed her breathing. "Wow."

"Agreed." John leaned up, removing the condom and tossing it before turning back to her. "And I can honestly say that round two'll be better."

"I'm already excited."

* * *

Anna opened her eyes and blinked before wincing. She shifted from under the arm around her waist and slipped to the floor to dig her ringing phone from the pocket of her jacket. Ending the alarm she pushed her hair back from her head and gathered her things, working into her knickers one handed before checking over her texts.

"Walk of shame?" She smiled and turned to John, sitting up on his bed.

"I did stay the night in strange man's bed."

"Not that strange." John shrugged, "But definitely enjoyable."

"I enjoyed it." Anna leaned over, kissing him, "Both times."

"If you're in Dublin for awhile we could do it again."

Anna stopped, leaning over to write her name and number on the pad next to his light. "Call me if you're free and I'll tell you my schedule."

"Looking forward to it." John eased himself out of bed, reaching for his own phone. "And not just because you were the best I've ever had."

"Sure that's not your deprivation talking?" Anna straightened her shirt and John caught her hand.

"It was the best."

"Then don't hesitate to call." Anna gave one last kiss, pulling at his lips. "I'll see you."

She hurried back to her hotel, showering as quickly as she could before dressing and running for a cab. The driver gave her a look when she gave the address but she ignored it and sorted through her files until she reached the building. Replacing them in her bag, and paying the driver, Anna hurried inside.

At the door she took the directions to the main office and knocked at the glass. The gray-haired man inside waved her in, hanging up the phone and coming around the desk to hug her. "It's been too long Anna."

"Yes it has." She pulled away, "Look at you, Chief Crawley. How's it feel?"

"It's a pleasure and a burden." He opened his hand toward the office, "Let me introduce you to the rest of your team while you're here."

"You mean the people who think I'm coming to stomp on their grounds?"

"They'll get over it." Chief Crawley guided her between the desks and stopped at two. "This is Tom Branson."

The man at the desk pushed back in a hurry, wincing and risking a palm to his head. Anna shook the hand extended to her and frowned a moment. "You look familiar."

"He's the one marrying Sybil on Saturday."

"It's not that." Anna pointed at him, "Did you visit a pub last night?"

"Might've done, it's a bit fuzzy." He snapped his fingers, then groaned before pointing to the side while sitting. "He'll tell you. He took me."

Anna turned and her eyes widened as John walked toward them. He froze, eyes round as saucers, and swallowed before Chief Crawley spoke. "Perfect, the other half of the team handling this case with you. I introduce, John Bates."

"Pleasure to meet you." Anna let her hand hang a little limp in his grip but John's grip lacked the same enthusiasm. "I'm sure we'll get along famously."

"I'm sure." He turned to Chief Crawley, taking his hand back. "This is the English cop we couldn't do without?"

"It's been her case for a long time John and she's the most qualified to help us catch this bugger." Chief Crawley smiled at all of them, "I'll let you get settled before we start our briefing."

"Thank you." Anna waited until he walked away, and Branson had his head in his arms on the desk. "What are you doing here?"

"My job, which obviously I couldn't have been doing very well if you're here."

"I never said anything about your work ethic."

"I would've thought that spoke for itself last night."

Anna frowned, "I do believe you're the one who said I could earn respect by doing my best."

"You'll have to do a lot better than that now."

"Why, feeling intimidated?"

"This isn't what I planned when I gave you that advice." John hissed at her as Anna collected her things and turned to him.

"Then we'll both be equally disappointed." She managed a tight smile, "I'm so glad to be welcomed to your investigation Mr. Bates."


	2. The Blade of Truth

John ground his teeth, glaring across the room at Anna. She flicked her eyes up occasionally, scowling in return, before turning back to her work. He jumped when something flicked him in the face and went to rage at the perpetrator until he saw Branson staring back at him with an eyebrow raised.

"What was that for?"

"For being a prat." Branson pointed to Anna as she flipped another page in whatever file she studied, "She's an expert on this guy and she'll help us catch him. That's what she's here to do and that puts her on our side."

"She's taking our territory."

"Please! If someone wants to come in and catch a serial killer for me I'm not going to begrudge them the time of day for it." Branson clicked his mouse, frowning at something on his screen before addressing John again. "I thought you'd be pleased for the extra help. You were bitching about not having it yesterday."

"I didn't think they'd be giving us an expert."

"What would you want them to give us? A temp? An amateur? Or," Branson paled, feigning abject fear, "A trainee."

"Shut up."

"Then man up and stop whinging about it." Branson frowned at something else, pecking his fingers over his keyboard a moment and then stopped. His eyes widened and he faced John, "You didn't!"

"Didn't what?" John signed his name at the bottom of a report, not paying Branson the attention he needed. He finally looked up to see Branson flipping his head between Anna's desk and their own so fast he could give himself whiplash. "Stop that before you break your neck."

"You slept with her!" Branson hissed, "That's what's you got your knickers in a twist right now."

"Worry about your own knickers." John signed another form, pointing his pen at Branson, "Or, better yet, worry about Sybil's knickers."

"I'm worried that you dropped her knickers."

"I'd never drop Sybil's knickers."

"You know what I mean." Branson's face tinged red, "I'm talking about you dropping our expert's knickers."

"Technically she dropped her own knickers as I was a bit busy getting the condom on."

"But that's why you're upset."

John finally faced Branson, "It's not like there's never been office romance here and you never accuse any of their bad moods on getting their leg over with the wrong person. You and Sybil argue all the time and you never say it's because you're working in close quarters and making time between the sheets."

"First, Sybil doesn't technically work here. She's a nurse and she's handled some of our cases in an advisory capacity. Second, whenever anyone else gets it over they don't then cold shoulder the other party like you are right now."

John snorted, "You watched what Mary did to Matthew after their drunken interlude at Christmas."

Branson shook his head before burying it in his hands, "Why do you speak like you were born in a completely different generation?"

"Being well-read isn't a crime."

"Being a pretentious snob is." Branson's head came up. "Just talk to her."

"Why?"

"Because, like it or not, she's here to stay until we nail this guy's ass to the wall and I want that to be sooner rather than later." Branson got serious, "Go and sort out whatever you've got going so we can work civilly with her for as long as she's here."

John capped his pen, "Everything about this screams 'recipe for disaster'. You know that, right?"

"I don't care if it's a bad translation of Chinese instructions on a ramen noodle container so it reads that you bake until dead. You're sorting out your mess with her so we can work as a team and you're doing it right now."

"I thought I was the senior partner in this duo."

"Then act like an adult, pull up your big-boy britches, and get your ass over there to apologize for being a dick to her."

"Not for getting it in her."

Branson did not crack a smile, "Don't be crass. It doesn't suit you and it wears very poorly."

John sighed, "Do you ever get tired of being you?"

"Never." Branson snapped his fingers and pointed, "Before I tell Chief Crawley what you did."

John stalked over to Anna's desk and knocked is knuckles on the edge. She did not look up, though he caught the flick of her gaze, "Yes Mr. Bates?"

"Branson says I should apologize."

"And I'm guessing you don't agree." She put down her file and looked up at him, "Then what brings you over here."

"He wants me to make peace so we can work together and solve this case."

"Seems wise." Anna sat back, folding her arms, "I'm all ears, Mr. Bates. What do you want me to say?"

"Why you're here."

"Because this takes finesse and focus."

John scoffed, "None of which we have, is that it?"

"I never said that."

"You didn't have to." John hung his head, managing a dispirited laugh. "What, they don't think we can handle this case?"

"It's got nothing to do with your ego, Mr. Bates. It's not meant to stroke or kill it, so you can put your precious pride to rest."

"Then what's it got to do with?" John put his hands on her desk, leaning down to look her in the eye. "Why do we need an English DI consultant?"

"Because it was my case first and I'm the most qualified person for this."

"You? Because you study serial killers?"

"No, because he started with me." Anna stood, forcing John to rise. "And before you make some crack about me needing to get this for myself I'll let you in on a little secret."

"Oh? And what's that?"

"Your people asked me here." Anna nodded at John's widening eyes. "This wasn't my choice but I followed a request. So I'm not invading and, to be honest, I don't want to be here. I wish I could just hand this off to you and Mr. Branson over there but Chief Crawley thought you could use my help and I consented to give it as I could."

"I doubt we need it."

"Then, if you've got a problem or something to say to them I suggest you address it with your Super. And if you don't want to do that then stick it up your ass and leave it. Either way, leave me out of your little pity party because I haven't the time." Anna gathered her things, "I'm here to catch a killer. You want to help then we're glad to have. If not then stay out of my way."

John watched her go, scowling. He was so focused on her that the slap up the back of his head made him twist and flinch. Rubbing furiously at it he saw Branson at his elbow.

"What was that for?"

"Being an ass." Branson pointed, "She's going in the wrong direction with the wrong look on her face."

"What do you want me to do?"

"Drop your ego like your ex-wife dropped you."

John flinched, "That was rude."

"Like you're being." Branson checked his watch, "I've got a lunch with a CI. If you don't mind, could you try and have this all figured out before I get back?"

"No guarantee."

Branson only gave an exasperated sigh and left John by the gaggle of desks.

Anna returned to her desk a short time later and John steeled himself to go back over to her. When she saw him, Anna started to stand but John held up a hand. "I… Would you come somewhere with me?"

She frowned, her brow furrowing deeply with the narrowing of her eyes. "So you can truss me up in the back of a trunk and ship me back to England?"

"No," John shook his head and pointed toward the ceiling. "Somewhere we can have a conversation."

"Here was fine earlier."

"You wouldn't want to share this details with the room." John jerked his head to the side and Anna followed him to the lifts. "We're going for a bit of a view."

They took the lifts to the roof and John stepped out, allowing Anna to get past him as she surveyed the view from the rooftop. With a shrug she turned to him and held her hands open, "We've got the view so what've you got to get off your chest where only the birds can hear us?"

John pushed his hands into his pockets, focusing on the ground as he kicked at a loose bit of concrete. "I wanted to ask why they chose you."

Anna groaned, "I told you-"

"No," John shook his head, "I'm not talking about my shitty accusation that my superiors have no faith in us. I'm talking about why you're the person they chose."

"Other than my previously mentioned expertise?"

"Other than that." John confirmed, shrugging his shoulders. "There's a reason you said this man focused on you first. And since I'll assume no one would be dumb enough to assign a case to a victim it couldn't be because you were someone he hurt there has to be another reason."

Anna pursed her lips and John noted the slight twitch in her cheek. "That'd be true, in most scenarios, if the background check for agents and consultants covered legal name changes."

John's jaw almost dropped. "You're name's fake?"

"Not technically." Anna crossed her arms over her chest, "I changed it by deed poll, all legal."

"But they would've found that in the research."

"If I were a policewoman then yes, they might've, but I've got friends in high places and I'm a consultant so the rules are a tad more lax for me than you." Anna took a deep breath, "I'm here for a reason, same as you… just not the same reason."

John shook his head, "I don't know you at all."

"Of course you don't. We only met last night." Anna met his eyes, "It doesn't mean we can't help one another with this case."

"That's what you're calling it?"

"What do you want me to call it?"

"I…" John blew out, taking a hand from his pocket to run it through his hair. "What kind of hand do I give you in all this since you wouldn't be this far without a plan."

Anna snorted, "You're right, I do have a plan."

"Why?" Both of John's hands were outside of his pockets now, spread wide. "What'd he do to you?"

"How much do you know about him?"

"Only that he signs 'Green' on all the scenes and has a very Joker-esque disregard for human life."

Anna nodded, "You're not far off the mark but, from experience and research, that's a learned trait."

"Learned how?"

"Practice." Anna took a deep breath, "He was one of those people who find themselves in a position to exert influence and power over others and it went to his head. He had money and believed other people were pleasures to be personally expendable."

"Were you one of those people?"

"After a fashion." Anna did not meet his eyes, "I was at a club in York, when I was at Uni, and I was a bit tipsy so I went outside for some fresh air when the room started spinning a bit."

"Is that where he found you?"

"I'll not go into the details but I knew his voice and I knew enough to know him when he found me the next day at Uni. The same voice he's used on all the taunting tapes he ever sent the police hunting him down."

"You've studied those tapes?"

"I could recite them verbatim for you."

John shook his head, "I don't need that."

"No one needs it." Anna sighed, "But I know him and it haunts me to this day that I didn't do more then."

"How'd you mean?"

"I couldn't get him behind bars for what he did to me."

"Why not?"

Anna shook her head, "I don't know if you know what it's like to be a woman and have to explain to the police why you're drunk in public or why you wear tight clothes or why you happened to be alone for any reason but I didn't get anywhere with them about my rape."

"So you tracked him down? Tried to get your own justice?"

"Not my own justice, no. I'm no vigilante."

"But you did track him down?"

"Not at first." Anna paced to the edge of the building. "I changed my course of study so I could fight people like him and stop women being treated as I was. On the way I found my current avenue of expertise and I made it my life."

"I'm not sure I follow the connection."

"The majority of serial killers are men who use the killing as an expression of sexual dissatisfaction and their victims are women." Anna gave a little snort, "Can't you see the connection there?"

John nodded, "In that context I do."

"So I wasn't overly surprised when I discovered there were other women like me who'd filed complaints against him and wanted a result but they'd either been rebuffed or distracted by the police."

"Was there another player?"

"It's how Green avoided a lot of awkward investigations and inquiries. He had his father's money and, based on the research I did into his family, Green's actions are learned traits from years of watching domestic abuse."

"It has an affect."

"So does pornography and his computers have been full of it since he was twelve." Anna made her hand move like stairs. "It's a progression to the point where you see other people as disposable pleasures to be used and abused as you wish."

"Then why turn to serial killing?"

"My guess is something made it so he couldn't rape anymore. Probably an accident or a disease." Anna's lip twitched toward a smile, "His father suffered prostate cancer young and it could be that Green did as well."

"Then he moved to kidnapping?"

"It's all about power, Mr. Bates, and he wanted it however he could get it. Inciting terror would be similar to what he got cornering women in alleys or dark shadows and raping them." Anna finally met John's eyes again, "I think the first death was a mistake, that he went too far."

"But instead of being shocked to stop he continued?"

"It's the next escalation in his power struggle. Power over someone to give them fear is nothing compared to keeping them on the edge of life and death and he's planted his flag there."

John rubbed a hand over his face, "Bastards like that make a bad name for every man on the face of this earth."

"The horrible truth of humanity is that people are human and they can do inhuman things." Anna sighed, "I'm sure you've got the families of those women breathing down your neck."

"A few of them." John nodded, "The others accepted that they'd lost their daughters to the sex trade or bad boyfriends or a lifestyle they 'knew would get them killed' but I know the signs of people trying to cover their grief."

"Then I guess that puts us a critical juncture, Mr. Bates." He raised his eyebrows and Anna gestured with a finger between the two of them. "Where do we stand?"

"You mean now that I know you're not really you and you're chasing some demons of your own?"

"Yes."

"At the start," John extended his hand, "Hello, my name's John Bates and I'm working this case. My partner, Tom Branson, is downstairs, and I hope you forgive the rather awkward first meeting we had."

Anna took his hand, "We're not always our best on first meetings."

"No, we're not." John took his hand back, "But I'd love to get your insight on this case."

"It'd be my pleasure."


	3. Clues to the Kingdom

"Here's everything I've got on him since he started ten years ago." Anna pulled the files up and thumped them on the desk between she and John. "It's considerable and it'll take time for another set of eyes."

"Afraid yours don't work?"

"More afraid I've looked over them so many times I don't recognize anything I've not already tread over before." Anna took the files John handed her. "And I need something else to stare at for awhile."

"It's not pretty." John opened the top file and frowned, "This starts before…"

"Before me? Yeah, I definitely wasn't his first victim." Anna nodded at the picture of the woman. "She's the earliest I could find but she's… She's since deceased. Took her own life."

"I'd want to kill him for that in and of itself."

"Get in line."

"So," John closed the file, tapping his fingers against the surface before finally managing to put words together. "Why did he leave Yorkshire?"

"I'm not entirely sure." Anna flicked through the file in her hands, examining the photographs and reading the notes with eyes whizzing back and forth over the pages. "Most perfectionists don't tend to leave their comfort zones."

"He's a perfectionist?" John frowned, "I thought you said his first killing was a mistake."

"It was." Anna leaned back in her chair. "From all the evidence I gathered about that scene it was an accident and it frightened him. He didn't do anything for another five months, which is an inordinate amount of time for someone kidnapping at the rate he was."

"For ransom?"

"Yes, in a way." Anna bit her lip, "It wasn't what you think."

"That he's a greedy and entitled bastard who just wanted more of what other people had?"

"He didn't ask for money."

"What'd he ask for then?"

"Secrets." Anna shrugged, "People like that want to prove the world is as depraved as they are. For the sickest of them they're excited about the kill the way a predator is."

"Except predators kill to eat." John paused, "I do hope you're not about to tell me this man is a cannibal as well as being mad."

"He's a meat eater but not that kind of meat." Anna shook her head, "I almost wish he were because then I could explain his psychosis."

"You could?"

"Eating human flesh has shown to be the start of several degenerative diseases in the brain. Similar to scabies in sheep or Mad Cow, it affects the protein folds in the brain through the spread of prions and causes a break down. That kind of degeneration has been noted in cultures that practiced cannibalism as the source of a disease called Kuru and similar to Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease."

"And he's not got it?"

"Based on the little evidence I've gathered he's far too meticulous to be suffering a degenerative brain disease." Anna chewed the inside of her cheek. "But he's predatory. There's a stalking process to what he does and I think the thrill of the hunt is what really does it for him."

"Like I said, most predators kill to eat, not to torment."

"Have you ever watched a car play with a mouse? It's not uncommon."

"But only humanity is subject to the kind of depraved behavior that breeds people like him." John smacked the stack of folders and they shuffled over his desk. "It makes me sick to think that people can desensitize themselves to the reality of the value of human life."

"A lifetime of pornography is the swiftest way to the serial killing moniker. Women become objects and people become playthings." Anna paused, her focus on one of the photographs. "What number was this?"

"Which one?" John leaned over and Anna turned the picture for him to see it. "That was his first. It was three months ago."

"His anniversary."

"He's married?" John's eyebrows went to his hairline, "Someone made the mistake of marrying this psycho?"

"No," Anna shook her head. "It's the anniversary of his first kill. The screwed up kidnapping."

"Did the family not give him sufficient secrets?"

"They never got the chance." Anna snorted to herself, "Based on the evidence the girl was a fighter and wouldn't be taken down easily. I think he tried to restrain her and that's when he broke her neck. He panicked and then ran for it."

"It was enough though."

"Enough for him to do this." Anna clacked her teeth together, "He's made quite the set piece with her."

"We thought it was a wild animal level of destructive."

"No, it's all intentional." Anna pulled up the file and her coat. "Take me there?"

"Where?"

"To the sight of his first murder here in Dublin. I want to see the sight for myself."

"Not before we've eaten." John stood, cracking his back and then nodding toward the vending machines. "I'm not eating another meal I paid for with loose change."

"How many meals have you eaten that way?"

"Too many." John grabbed his coat and nodded toward the door. "I know a place. I hope you enjoy Greek food."

"Anything that's not English."

"Not even tea?" John held the door for her and Anna smiled her thanks at him, holding the file close to herself as a gust of wind threatened to carry it from her hands when it ran its chill fingers through her bones.

"I like tea. It's the cure-all my mother brought out of the cupboard whenever we had the slightest sniffle."

John only laughed, pulling his coat closer, "Oh, the restorative powers of tea."

"Don't knock it. I believe it more than I do governmental structures."

"Those should never be trusted." John guided them down the street, avoiding the few people still on the street given the early afternoon. "They're usually designed only to war with someone else or steal your money."

"Says the man working for the government."

"I work to protect people, there's a difference."

"But what is that difference, Mr. Bates?" They waited for a light and then hurried to cross. "That tone is the sound of the once hopeful and now far less inclined to trust the establishment."

"Is that your professional diagnosis?"

"I'd give something a bit more solid if I had you on a couch and I had a notebook in my hand but, lacking those accouterments, I guess we'll have to make do with what we have."

"A decent table's a good enough place for it." John beat her to the door and Anna frowned at him. "Chivalry's not dead. At least not the parts about how to treat a lady."

"I'm not a lady, Mr. Bates." Anna leaned forward as they entered the restaurant and John waved to the host busy at another table. "And I don't pretend to be one."

"What if I thought you were a lady?"

"Then I'd remind you that a lady doesn't meet a man at a pub and then sleep with him." Anna shrugged, "Though you were completely worth the trouble."

"Glad we're back on that subject now." John shuffled in place and Anna shook her head at him. "I thought we'd buried that on the roof of the building."

"I might've froze my ass off up there but I didn't lose my memory." Anna drew her tongue over her teeth, the thrill giving her a blush to compliment the insane red that bled into John's cheeks. "Not that I'd want to either."

"Welcome," Both turned to the host, returned to the podium and nodding at John. "This isn't the lady you brought last time."

"Last time?" Anna's face brightened and the man made to lean over and tell her the whole story but John's voice interrupted.

"It's fine, Adrian, we're here for lunch."

"It's what everyone's here for. That and my mousaka." He grabbed one menu and waved them to follow him to a corner booth. "For the privacy."

"We don't-" John began but Anna took her turn to interrupt him.

"Thank you, it's just what we need." She accepted the menu and slid onto the seat, John grumbling as he took the other side. "We do need somewhere to speak privately because I don't think this crowd will really go for our lunch conversation."

"Won't it?" John tugged at his coat sleeves and hung it on the hook by the table, Anna following his example. "Who doesn't want to discuss the deaths of prostitutes and the lower class over their gyros?"

"The same people who chose to be accountants and veterinarians instead of policemen and profilers." Anna stopped, putting the file to the side. "Which reminds me, you've still not said what stole all your naiveté?"

"I'm guessing your won't accept the answer 'life did', will you?"

"You're a trained interrogator, what do you think?"

"That you won't accept that as an answer so you'd leave the room for a coffee-"

"Tea," Anna held up her finger to stop his story. "I only drink coffee when it's served Irish style and I wouldn't drink that at work."

"I guess it did make you a bit randy last night didn't it?" Anna held John's smirking gaze as long as she could before crossing her hands on the table.

"That had nothing to do with the whiskey you put in that drink."

"It didn't?"

"No," Anna scoffed, "Who needs alcohol when they've got you?"

"I-"

"Are you both ready to order?"

"The sampler plate to share and two of the medium serving gyros." Anna handed over the menu she had not even read. "And I'll take your raspberry lemonade please."

Adrian turned to John, who only shrugged. "I'll have tea with mine."

"Very good."

Anna timed Adrian's departure and smiled at John. "You're not really versed on the acceptable responses to ribbing are you?"

"Tom ribs me all the time."

"I think I got a glimpse of that earlier." Anna shifted her shoulders against the booth. "Did it have anything to do with the nasty attitude you used to greet me this morning?"

"It had everything to do with that." John ran a hand through his hair, "If my mother saw that she'd probably skin me alive."

"Is she why you're not so naïve about the world?" When John frowned Anna shook her head, "Sorry. It just seemed, based on how you talk about her, that whatever took you away from the bright-eyed-and-bushy-tailed bunch might have something to do with her."

"Why would it?"

"Because whatever happened to you was personal and you mentioned, last night, that you lost her recently."

"So we're analyzing our conversations now?"

"All conversations are up for analysis." Anna took a deep breath, "I can understand your frustration with it but-"

"But nothing. I'm not here to be dissected."

"And I'm not here to be judged based on the tidbits of conversation I picked up and put back together." Anna huffed, "Look, if that's not the answer to the question then just say what is and I'll-"

"It's none of your business."

Anna stared at John's face, "If you don't like my methods then I should warn you, they're not going anywhere and neither am I until I find a way to catch Green."

"You can catch him without trying to peel back whatever layers you think I have."

"Everyone has layers Mr. Bates." Anna folded her arms over her chest. "It's how many layers that's the question."

"Why don't we talk about Green's layers so we're getting something done?"

"You don't think getting to know one another is 'getting something done'?"

"To be honest, Ms. Smith, I think we know one another well-enough."

"Two shags in your bedroom do not a professional relationship make."

"Yeah, I'm starting to get that insanely uncomfortable feeling." The thrust of John's hand through his hair appeared severe enough to rip out chunks indiscriminately. "Why do you care anyway?"

"Because I refuse to be the British invader for my entire stay here." Anna almost bit her tongue when she clacked her teeth together. "I don't know what it is about me that seems to get under your skin so badly, Mr. Bates, but I'll remind you that you were the one who suggested we not talk about work last night."

"Starting to wish I hadn't because then I could've avoided this." John waved his hand in a circle, as if trying to wash Anna away. "I'm not the perpetrator."

"And I'm not an interrogator. All I did was ask a question."

"Well you can stop asking questions because I'm not going to spill my life story to you just because you did earlier."

Anna blinked at him, "You think I'm after a quid pro quo?"

"Aren't you?"

"I'm trying to better understand you."

"Don't."

Anna grabbed the folder and her coat, hurrying into it and then out of the booth. "Then I won't Mr. Bates. You enjoy your meal, it's on me unless you won't take charity."

She stormed out, discussing quickly with the rather confused girl at the counter, and then left the door to hit the frame when she hit the cold again. Turning her back to the wind, Anna opened the file to check the address and flagged down a cab. The heat inside enveloped her in a moment of comfort and Anna hurried to give the destination to the driver.

They weaved through the city and when they pulled up to the location the driver stuck out an arm to get her attention. Anna frowned, "Is there something wrong with my money?"

"No," He pointed toward the alley. "But there's a lot wrong with that place."

Anna turned to look into the alley but only noticed a piece of trash blowing past. "It doesn't look all that wrong. It's just an alley."

"Do you know what happened there?"

"I've heard." Anna shrugged, "It's in the past."

"But it's not." The man shuddered and his voice took on the same tone Anna recognized from any number of horror movies. "Things change around here when it hits midnight."

"Then isn't it a good thing it's only three in the afternoon?" Anna got out of the cab, hearing the man call after her as a gust blew through the alley with a slight murmur.

"That's not the wind howling. That's the soul of that girl."

"I'll keep that in mind." Anna shut the door and went into the alley. "No wonder the English left these people to themselves. They're all mad."

The alley provided enough cover from the wind to allow Anna to open the file and compare the photographs to the scene. She counted out the paces from the street to the matching section of pavement where they body had been. Crouching down a moment she noticed the darker stains, enduring past efforts to clean the location.

"Tragic isn't it?" She stood up, John walking into the alley. "It'll always be the place that poor woman died."

"What do you want?" Anna closed the file. "I thought you didn't want anything to do with this."

"I never said that." John stopped himself, jaw and cheeks moving as if he wanted to form the perfect sentence before he continued. "I acted like an ass."

"It might just be who you are today." Anna squared her shoulders, "But I'm getting rather tired of it, if that's any indication I've not got the patience to endure anymore of your childish antics."

"It's…" John's hand brushed at the back of his head, disturbing his hair and then securing it in his pocket to protect his skin from a rush of wind. "It's personal."

"So was what I told you on the roof." Anna shrugged, looking back over the scene. "But I already told you we're not playing this as quid pro quo."

"Then what are we playing it as?"

Anna rounded on him, folding her arms over her chest. Partly to keep herself warm and partly to let her body indicate that she had no patience left. "As partners working to track a serial killer. I need to know you so I can trust you."

"Shouldn't we just do trust falls instead?"

"Not that I wouldn't have a fun time trying to catch you, I think we both know that's ridiculous." She sighed, "This case eats people up. It tears them apart and only the strong survive because there's only so long you can look into the abyss of someone else's depravity and not fall in. I'm trying to make sure you're not going to fall in."

"Do I appear at risk to?"

"You've already cold shouldered me twice today and, by your own admission, acted like an ass so I guess the obvious answer is yes."

"The other obvious thing here is that we're having a problem with communication." John gestured to the alley, "What've you found here?"

"Desperation, mostly."

"Desperation?"

"From you to avoid any and all conversations that have anything to do with you or anything personal." Anna opened the file, "We'll leave it where it is."

"It's just that-"

"You don't trust me, Mr. Bates." Anna shrugged, not meeting the gaze she could feel boring into the back of her neck. "It's what we get from shagging in the dark and then trying to work together in the morning."

"I don't know if it's that easy. It could be-"

"I think," Anna held up a hand, finally turning to the flustered man. "We should focus on why we're here and forget about anything else. Alright?"

John nodded. "Of course."

"Good." Anna walked the area, "He's kept it all in this area."

"What makes you so sure?"

"It was the anniversary. The date is critical to the dimensions."

"Dimensions?"

Anna demonstrated, handing the file over. "Ten by seventeen. It was October seventeenth, yes?"

John consulted the file, "According to lividity, yes. I got here early the morning of the eighteenth so…"

"Right." Anna walked the scene, lips pursed. "Was there anything else different about the alley then?"

"Yes." John pointed just over her head. "We'd found that fire escape down and some of our constables found reason to suspect he ran for it using that."

"Not his normal mode of escape but I guess one has to learn to adapt." Anna crouched in the space, "This isn't like it was in Yorkshire."

"How's it different?"

Anna waved her hand over the space, "He didn't kill her here. There's no blood and no trace that he did anything but leave the body. For an anniversary killing it feels too tame."

"Tame? After all the blood I saw I know that's not true."

"That was his art, remember, not his action." Anna paced the dimensions again, chewing the inside of her cheek.

"Then you don't think he scrubbed it away either, like the original report said?"

"No," Anna pointed up toward the pictures in his hand, "Based on what I saw in those pictures he didn't kill that woman here. He left the body and staged it."

John craned his head to examine the alley, "That's what I thought but we didn't have enough evidence to prove that."

"I guess that's what happens when someone decides to come and piss in your backyard after he did it in someone else's yard."

"That wasn't it." John pointed to the alley, "There's no safe escape and he wouldn't have the time to rape and then kill her without a passer-by seeing something of it. He wanted her found here for another reason."

"Distraction." Anna stood and John paced the alley. "It's a taunt and a celebration rolled into one."

"How complicated for him."

Anna shrugged, "His location's changed and so has his M.O. but he's still the same disgusting psychopath underneath."

"Then why are you frowning?" Anna faced John and he pointed to her expression. "If you felt confident in the diagnosis you're giving then you wouldn't look so troubled."

"Honestly?" She shook her head, "This case doesn't make the sense it used to."

"It used to make sense?"

"His methodology followed a pattern before. I could track his progress back then but now I can't."

"Something about the change from kidnapping to murder might've done it."

"That's almost too simple for him." Anna threw her hands up a bit and then snagged the photographs from the file. "He's someone who relishes his intelligence over others. That would be too see-through."

"You're saying he's got layers to his delusions, yes?" John walked along the edge of the alley. "Alright then, for my simple brain, I'm going to say that location can't be a coincidence, no matter what the change."

"In the words of every relator I've ever met, it's always about location." Anna stopped, switching between two pictures and then pointing at the wall. "This is where he propped the body?"

"Yeah." John shoved his hands into his pockets, the file tucked between his arm and his side. "Made a few of the younger constables vomit. They'd never seen something so grotesque."

"He was putting on a show. His psychosis doesn't allow for mess." Anna held the photograph up to the wall, looking between it and the wall until she handed them back to John and pulled out a baton she extended in a snap. "He was saying something with his display."

"Garish." John stepped out of Anna's way. "He could've left a note instead."

"This was his note."

"Seems a bit overly complicated."

"There's a method to all madness Mr. Bates." Anna crouched and located the darkest of the bricks before counting up seventeen from the spot. When she stopped she counted five to the right and then five to the left. Pointing to the right one she took the left. "Jiggle that. It'll be loose."

She knocked the brick with her baton and waited until enough of the grout loosened to pull at it with her fingers. Dust and pieces of brick dropped to the ground as Anna worked past them to investigate the brick. Setting it down to the side she pulled her small flashlight out and shined it inside. Something reflected back into her eyes and Anna blinked back, putting her flashlight away before grabbing for what lay inside. It scraped against the brick but Anna managed to get it in her grasp. It dragged a bit but she finally freed it from the clutches of the brick.

"Tricky bastard isn't he?" John flicked with his fingers and finally retrieved his piece. "Likes games does he?"

"He's a bit of a showman." Anna brought her piece over to his and frowned. "But why a mirror."

"I think it's-" John tipped his head up, pointing toward the roof above them.

Anna craned her head back, her frown solidifying into a scowl before she grabbed for the fire escape. "He wasn't looking for an exit when he used these."

They reached the top of the stairs, Anna dropping to the roof and walking the edges of it before returning to where John waited. Taking a deep breath, and closing her eyes a moment, she walking seventeen steps forward and stopped. Ignoring John's mutter behind her, Anna dusted her hand over the roof and then sat back.

"I think you might want to see this." Anna crouched back on her heels, crossing her arms over her knees to rest her chin on her arms. "It's worse."

"Worse than leaving a woman practically sucked dry in an alley?" John turned to the message on the roof and closed his eyes. "This is worse but I don't know why it's worse except that there's a chill running down my spine that's not the wind."

"It's his count." Anna stood up, surveying the roof again. "He wants us to know he's not done."

"He's already dropped those bodies though."

"Then he's got others on his mind." Anna stopped, frowning, "Do you hear that?"

"Hear what?" John shuffled and craned his head to listen, his brow furrowed. "What is that sound?"

"It's Beethoven's _Moonlight Sonata_."

"What about it?"

"I'm not sure yet." Anna followed it to the rooftop entrance and opened the door, pointing her flashlight into the stairwell. "Feel like a bit of investigating?"

"Because you hear classical music?"

"Because it's his favorite song." Anna pointed just to the side and waited for John to notice the camera. "He's watching us."

"The intelligence says we don't fall into his trap."

"Step two is always to spring the trap." Anna shrugged, "Come if you want."

"You don't have authority to do any investigating."

"Then I guess I'm just a private citizen trespassing and now you've got probably cause to follow."

Anna heard John's groan as she continued into the stairwell.


	4. The Alchemy of Where

John kept to Anna side in the small hallway. "Is this the part of the story where the killer comes for us?"

"That's exactly what part this is Mr. Bates."

"Then is now the best time to tell you this is not how I want to die?"

"Maybe not but," Anna shrugged and followed the corridor as the sound of music grew louder. "I'm curious how much you've thought about it."

"Probably about as much as you've thought about Green and whatever his relationship is with the _Moonlight Sonata_."

"I wonder why you said it with that tone."

John frowned. "What tone?"

Anna pivoted, pointing at him. "That tone that says you're suspicious of my hunch and you're questioning every decision I'm making."

"True as that may be," John help up a hand, "I'm sincerely interested in knowing why you immediately think that hearing _Moonlight Sonata_ means he's here."

"Why shouldn't it?"

"Feels a bit convenient." John shook his head, keeping his voice down as Anna turned her head to try and follow the sounds of the music. "I mean, it's a famous piece and one of the only classical pieces I actually know but it's also one that a lot of people know."

"He's obsessed with it."

"So are a lot of people. It's a great song."

"It's also a piece in three movements that a lot of people forget because the first movement is the most famous of the three of them." Anna continued down the hall, keeping her steps short. "But it's his favorite."

"He doesn't play it when he-"

"No," Anna stopped in the corridor, shaking her head. "He just thinks of himself as an educated person. He's not deep and complicated."

"Never would've given him the credit." John paused, "Then what's his obsession with the song?"

"He's a surface-level snob."

"And you know this because?" John shrugged at the scowl on Anna's face. "It's not a bad question."

"I know him because I've studied him. The way he acts is like he wants to be deep and suspicious but he's really just someone trying to overcome his own shortcomings." Anna stopped, pointing at a door. "He's an everyman snob."

"Hence the song choice?"

"Exactly. It's like those people who think the only operas ever written were _La Bohème_ or _Carmen_."

"I've got to admit," John let Anna lead the way to the door. "Those are some of the only operas I actually know and I couldn't even begin to tell you how those plots go."

"No one really knows." Anna examined the door handle, twisting it before digging into her pocket. "But that's why I'm not a fan of opera."

"You're not?"

"No, I much preferred the idea of the musical. I could sing along to those since I don't speak German or Italian." Anna pulled out a wallet-like object and unzipped it. "I prefer to sing along to those things I can actually understand."

"Are those-" John turned away from her. "If you're going to continue breaking and entering then I can't watch."

"Don't be so surprised." John almost turned at the sound of her voice but kept himself away from her until the click of the lock opened the door. "There. Looks like the door was open."

"This isn't some American crime show where we can just do whatever we want and 'face the consequences later' because here it's not as simple as a slap on the wrist for plot convenience purposes." John pointed into the interior. "There are rules here. Rules we should probably appreciate and-"

"If you're going to keep arguing I'm going to go in myself and leave you debating it all with yourself in the hall." Anna tucked her lock-picking tools back into her pocket and slipped through the opening she made. "Follow me if you want because, technically, I'm breaking and entering and you're obligated to do something about that."

John groaned and followed her into the room. He pulled his sleeves over his hands and nodded at her to do the same. "If we're going to break all these rules then I insist we make sure we're not contaminating the scene so much we'll destroy the whole reason we're risking both of our jobs here."

Anna made a show of pulling her sleeves over her hands and dragged her phone from her pocket to flick the flashlight on. John did the same, wincing as the song started over again. "Does he have the thing on bloody repeat?"

"Maybe?" Anna took a turn on the spot. "I don't think he's here."

"The lack of maniacal laughter in the background told you that?" Anna scowled at John, blinding him with her phone light. "What? This is how we go."

"And how'd you figure that?"

"The music was my first clue but I guess there's a lot of things that could've been indicators."

"I do hope you're not commenting on the poor décor of this rather detestable flat." Anna shook her head, "And if you're commenting on the music after I've explained-"

"It's classical music."

"As we've already stated."

John rolled his eyes. "You know that any moment we turn around and there he'll be, waiting to garrote us or slit our throats or…"

"Or, whenever you finish your deteriorating comments, you'll remember what I just said about him not being here."

"Then he won't mind if I find his music and turn damn thing off." John aimed his flashlight along the walls and located the iPod speaker. "Finally."

Before John could hit the button something hit him. His hand went to the back of his head as his shoulder hit the bookcase holding the stereo. It toppled to the floor, knocking the iPod loose and ending the music.

That was the last thought in John's head before it too hit the floor.

* * *

A thudding behind John's eyes deterred him from opening them fully. And when he tried to shift in place the constraints of a chair held his arms in place while his legs locked firmly in position. John forced his eyes open to find himself tied in the middle of the sitting room with Anna in the chair next to him. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the cracked iPod where he landed on it.

"Or they do this."

"What's that?" John blinked, noting a man sitting on the sofa across from them, peeling slices of cheese from the block and discarding the more suspicious parts.

"Sorry?"

"You just said 'or they do this' and I'll assume there was more to that thought before you said that part. Like a conversation I missed or something." The man nodded at him, "What was it you were saying?"

"I was just making a comment that killers usually corner the people stupid enough to track themselves into places like this. They usually take advantage of a moment of surprise to garrote you or slit your throat or-" John shuffled in his chair, rocking it a bit from side to side.

"Or they do this." The man pointed at John with the knife in his hand, nodding as comprehension dawned. "I get it now. Thank you."

"Not a problem." John paused, "Unless you're planning on killing me now."

"If I were a killer then I wasted my chance to slit your throat already by bothering to tie you up. Again when I let you speak. And again," The man stood and moved closer so John could see the lank face that matched the lanky body of a man with dark hair. "When I let you see my face."

"Wouldn't that mean you have to kill me now?"

"That's not how he works." Both men turned as Anna roused herself, wincing. "Did you taze me?"

"Thought you'd appreciate it a bit better than the blunt object I took to the back of this one's head." The man jerked his head in John's direction as he crouched on his long legs and let his arms drape over the arms. "It was what I could do to get you both at once."

"Because you left your sniper rifle at home Talbot?"

"You know I only ever use it for special requests." Talbot gestured around the room. "Like for this one, when I get him."

"Is he one of yours?"

"He-"

"Wait." John interrupted them and Talbot turned, pushing his hands into his pockets to face him. "What the hell is going on here?"

"I'm sorry. I've been exceedingly rude." Talbot extended a hand and then retracted it, nodding at John's secured wrists. "That was even worse."

"You could just untie me and we'll call it evens."

"I can't do that." Talbot shook his head. "Can't let you get in the way."

"You do realize you've not only assaulted but also restrained and held against his will, a Guard?"

"I know that now." Talbot winked at John. "And when we meet again I'll buy you a beer and we'll laugh about this."

"Not bloody likely."

"Well, be that as it may, I can't release you."

"Why not?"

"Because he's not supposed to be here." Anna snorted, shaking her head. "Talbot here is Captain Henry Talbot, operations officer with Special Branch."

"Do you specialize in abductions?"

"Interrogations and wetwork, mostly." Talbot shrugged, hands still in his pocket. "I handle those disgusting little jobs no one wants."

"Is this one of them."

"Green is." Talbot turned to Anna, "If I say more it'll give you ammunition you can't even fire so don't ask."

"You being here already tells me he's an officer with our government."

Talbot shrugged again, "I can neither confirm nor deny-"

"I didn't ask you anything you wanker." Anna cut him off, turning back to John. "Talbot here handles deserters. Shots the dangerous ones and has since he served abroad and killed a traitor ghosting their position to the enemy."

John faced Talbot, "How'd you do it?"

"I aimed and I fired." Talbot did not even blink. "The others in my group couldn't do it and I did since I could. It was simple. He betrayed us and didn't deserve our pity or our understanding. It's the same with this piece of shit."

"So you'll just shoot him if you get the chance?"

"Give me one bullet and it's done."

John took a turn to snort, "Got confidence out your ass there."

"He's not confident without excuse." Anna supplied, pulling at the bindings on her wrist. "He never misses."

"Never?"

"They don't call me the Scythe for nothing." Talbot sighed, "Although never to my face since everyone I work with thinks that I'm not loyal to the regiment or anyone. You know what they say about spook work… Down there long enough and no one trusts you."

"Should we?" John made a show of pulling at his ties again. "This doesn't exactly inspire confidence."

"It's necessary."

"Why?"

"Like I said, you'll get in my way."

"Of you shooting a man?"

Talbot nodded, "That's the intention. All I've got to do is track the bugger down and put one between his eyes. It's not difficult and I'll hopefully be done in time for my holiday."

"Maybe the gnomes hammering for ore in my head are demanding a bit more loudly than I can comprehend for the babbling flow of your arguments to cease but," John scrunched his eyes closed again and then blinked open to focus on Talbot. "Have you completely lost your mind?"

"I would think the answer to that question would be 'obviously not' but I try not to judge other's lack of observational skills."

John worked to turn to Anna. "Can you not speak sense to him?"

"Why would you assume I could do anything?"

"Two reasons. First, you got us into this mess. Second, you know him."

Anna sighed, directing her next comments to Talbot. "Henry-"

"If you're hoping to get inside my head with your use of my first name as a technique of putting us on equal footing you're not giving me enough credit Anna."

"Then listen when I tell you that you can't end this man's life."

"My skills say otherwise."

"He's got a list of bodies he's got to answer for."

"And if I don't drop him there'll be more."

"And if you do then we might miss others he's hidden from us who'll never get the peace they deserve." John tried, noting the twitch in Talbot's shoulders. "Doesn't that mean anything to you?"

"It means a great deal to me because the sodding bugger's not strung up to strangle slowly from the tallest bridge I can find." Talbot took a breath. "This is personal for me, Mr. Bates, and I don't intend to let it lie."

"Personal how?"

"A friend of mine lost his wife to this wanker." Talbot sucked the inside of his cheek. "I'm not sure if you've looked through his grisly file but when you do you'll find the name Rose McClare Aldrige and her husband, Atticus, commissioned me for this personally."

"Rose was-" Anna did not finish her sentence as Talbot picked one of the phones off the table and dialed a number before leaving it to ring there. "Henry please don't do this."

"It's already done, Anna." Talbot bent over the back of the sofa and retrieve a long, zippered case. "This man destroyed my friend and that means something to me because this, in some small way, is how I give my contribution to the efforts of repairing him."

"Some things can't be fixed."

"But they can be balanced and I'm going to set things right with the world again, if I can." Talbot nodded at the phone. "Your friends should be retrieving you soon. I wish you luck on your hunt and remember, don't get in my way."

Talbot left the flat, closing the door behind him. John took one moment and then hitched up the chair to stumble forward. Ignoring Anna's sound of disapproval, he jumped backward and tensed his body. The weak chair shattered, knocking the air from him, but freeing John's arms and legs from the restraints.

Wheezing while shaking the bits loose, John turned to Anna and untied her before going to his phone. He pulled it to his ear, coughing as he struggled to answer the dispatcher on the other end. Anna slipped it from his grip and within ten minutes they stood in the middle of all the insignia-ed jackets they could count as forensic personnel and other Guards swarmed the flat.

One of them being Chief Crawley with a very nasty scowl painting his face. He gestured about them, dodging out of the way as two suited individuals collected evidence from the cracked iPod and the broken chair. "I'm sure you think this was brilliant of you."

"Quite the opposite sir." John answered, keeping his response short while glaring at Branson over Chief Crawley's shoulder.

"And that's it?" Chief Crawley waited but Anna answered before John could take another go.

"It's all Mr. Bates can say since this was my idea." Anna pointed her finger toward the roof. "I'm sure you've already got teams in the alley and up on the roof investigating his little tally board."

"They've gathered evidence but it's no excuse for why you're in here." Chief Crawley circled a finger as if to signal the area about them. "Do you have a reason why you're inside a private residence with no warrant in sight and no probable cause?"

"We heard music."

"There are five flats between here and the roof playing music, Bates. Try again." Chief Crawley waited as John winced. "What? The thought of doing this wrong and destroying the case making you as sick as it's making me?"

"It's more to do with the fact that I heard music that I've associated with Green and followed it." Anna offered, shrugging. "It was _Moonlight Sonata_."

"I don't give a hoot in Hell if it was the tune for the bloody icecapades. I care that you're in here when you shouldn't have been."

"It was the song for psychos." John almost kissed Branson full on the mouth for the comment and again for enduring the purpling face of Chief Crawley. "He's a psycho and then he's playing psycho music and-"

"If you don't get out of my sight, Branson, you'll find yourself scraping shit off the pavement as your next assignment." Branson slunk away and Chief Crawley faced John and Anna again. "Well?"

"We were attacked, sir." John put a hand to the back of his head, drawing away quickly when he touched the tender spot growing into a decently sized lump on the back of his brain. "Got taken by surprise."

"If it was the owner of the flat they were well within their rights to shoot you for being on their property."

"It wasn't the owner." John noted the wide eyes of Anna, the slight shake of her head but he plunged forward. "It was someone named Henry Talbot, not sure if it's his real name."

"And what's that to me?"

"He's hunting Green for himself."

"Hunting him?"

John shrugged, dropping his arm. "He's some kind of sniper."

"A hit man?"

"He's an operations officer with Special Branch." Anna filled in, shooting John a death glare. "And agent of the British Government."

"And that's supposed to make me feel better? Knowing that a trained assassin is in my city hunting for a psychotic killer?"

"It at least tells us that Green's got association with the British Government and now we've got a face to look for instead of chasing shadows." John offered, holding his ground at the withering expression from Chief Crawley. "It's a place to start."

"And you think it's a viable lead?"

"The man tazed Ms. Smith and knocked me over the head to keep us down."

"I could've knocked you on the head if that's all it would've taken." Chief Crawley sighed, rubbing at the bridge of his nose and pinching there as he scrunched his eyes closed. "Fine. See what you can find to help us nail this bastard to the wall."

John frowned, "Which one?"

"Either. Both. Whichever answer gets me someone who could hang for murdering this many people like it's a game." Chief Crawley shook his head, leaving the flat and almost running into one of the forensic technicians. "Watch where you're going."

John turned to Anna, "I do hope your friend's not going to be a problem."

"He told us to stay out of his way and we'll be fine."

"Going after Green through whatever connection they could have seems the opposite of that admonition."

Anna managed a little grin. "I never was one for strict rules."

"Don't I know it."


	5. Palace of Reason

Anna rubbed at her eyes, pushing back from the desk and closing the file in front of her in the same motion. John mimicked her motions at his desk and shrugged up at her before adding his file to a towering pile. "Another dead end."

"I don't think I realized how common a last name 'Green' actually was." Anna laid her file carefully atop John's like a dangerous game of Jenga. "Or even if I ever wanted to contemplate it."

"I didn't." John checked the time. "Come on, let's get something to eat and give ourselves a bit of a breather. Put fresh eyes on this."

"How much better will an hour do after a week of digging into the detritus of service files?" Anna raised her eyebrows but grabbed her coat all the same at the sight of John's outstretched hand. "Fine. But just an hour and then I'm going home for a shower and sleep in a real bed."

"You mean that sofa in the break room's not good enough?"

"Being better than face-planting on my desk isn't really a resounding recommendation." Anna stretched her arms back, pulling herself straight. "Besides, we've got a wedding tomorrow and we need to look our best."

"Can't say I'd mind calling in sick to that so I could get myself a night of sleep in a bed I call mine." John led them into the street, pulling his coat tightly about himself and shivering. "It's brass monkeys out here."

"It's probably the best way to wake me up at this point since I've already super-saturated on tea."

"Don't think I didn't notice you managed to guzzle a coffee earlier." John snorted and Anna swatted at him. "What? I skipped Branson's stag night for this so don't think I didn't notice every little thing."

"Then should I mention that you managed to fall asleep standing straight up?" Anna shook her head burrowing her hands under her armpits as she burrowed into her coat. "But Branson would kill you if you missed it."

"When did you and he get so chummy?"

Anna grinned, following John across the street. "I guess he failed to mention that I grew up with the Crawley sisters and therefore I met him when Sybil brought him to a family vacation where we all cruised the Mediterranean?"

"Tom hates boats."

"He endured that one for Sybil and it's part of what helped endear him to Chief Crawley really." Anna shook her head, "He's a hard man to impress."

"You impressed him enough that he requested you come all the way here." John paused, stroking his shoe along the line of the pavement. "I know we've not… gotten off on any of the right feet."

"Tripped ass over tits would be a better summation of our relationship thus far." Anna shrugged, "But it's what happens when tensions run high."

"And that's my fault, on a grander scale." John huffed out a breath, nodding at a path that leading toward the water. "I've not been the most forthcoming and I've rather stuck my head as far up my ass as it can go."

"I do hope that's not some tantalizing piece of information before you yank it away like you did the last time." Anna nibbled at her lip. "If it is, I just want to be very clear that I plan to make this relationship one where either we're entirely professional and therefore our only conversations are about a psychopath who could strike at any moment or where we're going to be open and honest with one another."

John took a deep breath, nodding at her. "I understand and I respect your perspective because I've been giving that a lot of thought as we've dug ourselves into a very large hole of personnel files."

"You had time to think in between all of those?"

"Mostly I was enduring a lot of Branson's scowls and glares… and more than a few unfortunate side-eyes from Chief Crawley."

Anna cringed, "Yeah, I can't say that we gave ourselves a very good start on our first day when we got tazed-"

"Your friend bashed me in the back of the head."

"Okay… I admit he wasn't acting at his best."

John guided them to the water, leaning on the railing. "What if we decide that we're going to be completely honest with one another right now?"

Anna dropped her arms on the railing, leaning forward and glaring across the water as the lights blinked from the other side of the water. After a moment she nodded, "I think that would be best."

They stood in silence a moment before Anna faced John. "Are you going to go first or should I?"

"I guess, since you're the one who shared the relevant parts of your life story on the rooftop, I should go first." John took a deep breath, "The thing that lost me my naiveté on this job was because of the death of my mother."

"How'd she die?"

"She was sick, had been for awhile, but what drove her over the edge was when I happened to anger a drug lord and he decided to make it personal."

"Did he-"

"She didn't kill my mother, at least no directly." John shook his head, "My mother overworked herself beating the shit out of the two wankers that got sent to her house to find me and her heart gave out."

"She beat the shit out of two men who broke into her house?" Anna pointed in the general direction of John's house. "That same house where we-"

"Don't worry, I got all the blood cleaned out of the carpets and she passed peacefully. Albeit not in her own bed, like she wanted." John pushed away from the railing, holding to it with one hand and pushing against it for a moment before standing straight. "But that was what told me that the life I chose, the one where we protect people and we make life better wasn't actually true."

"You think you don't protect people?"

"Why do you think Batman wore a mask?" John opened his arms but Anna stayed quiet and waited for him to finish. "Because while we're out there, putting our faces on everything and making it so everyone knows who we are as we're trying to nail the bad guys to the wall, we put those we love in danger. It's the reality of our existence that we can protect everyone but those we actually love."

"So you either turn yourself into a hardened cynic and make it so nothing and no one can hurt you or you turn yourself into a sobbing pain box?" Anna shook her head, "I guess it's better than existing in a little anger cage that, when you open the lid, allows you to spring out of it like a demon-possessed jack-in-the-box."

"Is that what they wrote on your evaluation when you joined this team?"

"No, that's something I said about Mary when she was being absolutely horrible to Matthew after they unintentionally shagged each other last Christmas Eve." Anna turned slightly, still leaning over the railing. "She's not been the same since and it's rather unfair to him."

"Kind of the way I've been to you?"

"I wasn't going to say anything."

"But you should've." John winced, "I've… I've not been fair to you on multiple occasions and that's rather bad form."

"It's what happens when you're not sure what to do about things you can't quite express." Anna pointed, "Does that thing still run when it's this cold outside?"

"We could get someone to take our money for it I'm sure." John nodded toward it, leading them down the walk. "Dun Laoghaire was one of my favorite spots as a child. My dad would bring me here and we'd ride the Ferris wheel until he almost chucked all over."

"You and your dad were close?"

"Until a lorry went too fast on a one-way street." John sighed, "It's funny how the actions of one person change the lives of so many when you least expect it."

"Statements like that always make me think everyone took Philosophy 101 and then decided that was enough morality for them." Anna shook her head, tugging her coat tighter until it could not stretch anymore. "It's what gets you through the cold nights."

"Is that what gets you through the cold nights?"

"And there it is." Anna pulled them to a halt, pivoting to face him. "I guess fair is fair."

"You did promise we'd be all in the open." John pointed, directing them across the road and toward the Ferris wheel. "I'm willing if you are."

"And you've been more than fair." Anna took a deep breath, "You already know the first part and I'll admit, it wasn't entirely true."

"Wasn't entirely true?" John frowned, digging his hands into his pockets. "Which parts of it did you edit?"

"It wasn't like I censored anything for children."

"Because then you'd have to not talk about how I got you drunk and took you home."

"For the record, I was merry, not paralytic. And even the idea of being merry is entire the hormones, not because I was drunk in any way." Anna shook her head, "I don't get drunk anymore."

"So that part of your story, the one about Uni, was true?"

Anna nodded, "My personal involvement where it comes to Green was entirely true but how I changed my name and got in on this case wasn't."

"Chief Crawley didn't ask you in on this?"

"No, he did, but I'm talking about why I'm the one who's studied Green." Anna cringed, "And how I know Henry."

"I'm not letting go of the fact he knocked me over the head."

"And I don't blame you for that but he's actually a good man."

"Is he the one who got you your new identity?"

"No, that would be our mutual boss. Or our old, mutual boss." Anna puffed out. "I work for British Intelligence."

"And what do you do for them?"

"I study psychos and serial killers and analyze the behavioral patterns of people that might represent threats to the empire. Hence…" Anna shrugged, "It's what keeps the nation safe."

"And that's how you met Talbot?"

"He's the one they send to take out those psychos and killers."

"So you set them up and he knocks them down?"

Anna nodded, "Special Branch covered enough of my background to allow me to track Green."

"Then don't you have access to let us find him?"

"It's buried deeper than I've got access to." Anna snorted, "I'm basically an analyst and not much better than."

"But you've got enough experience to know he's one of yours?"

"Or else he's associated with us. He's got a rich father who's got a lot of strings he can pull with the right dollar amount." Anna stopped, twitching her head to the side a moment. "Or did."

"Is his father dead?"

"I think it might've been a trigger."

"I thought that girl's death was an accident."

"It was…" Anna shook her head. "It's got Henry all worked up because it was his friend's wife and so he took the case to finally get rid of a thorn in our side."

"Why let it go on so long? Why let him have free range for ten years to kidnap and rape women?" John shook his head, "If the government let him do that then-"

"Who do you think got the money and the secrets he extorted?" Anna nodded toward the Ferris Wheel? "Is it still a bad time to ask for a ride on it?"

"Feels like the perfect time since the government's favorite psycho decided to jump shores and kill ten women in as many weeks." John dug out his wallet as an older woman came toward him, babbling in Cant. "Although I'm curious about how we got onto that roof the other day and heard the music if-"

"Pressure sensor." Anna ground her teeth, waving at the woman when she snatched the money from John's hand and waved them onto the open seats. "It was activated to lure me down there."

"Or anyone?"

"No, me." Anna ground her teeth again, "It's inevitable that he'd figure out I'm after him because while he's not the genius he'd like to think he is he's not stupid."

"He knows the government'd turn on him and send it's psycho hunter and psycho killer out to find him?"

"Not sure he knows about Talbot but I've not exactly been quiet in academia." Anna tucked herself into the seat and waited for the bar to come up and restrain them. "It's not like the song _You're So Vain_."

"Then he's taunting you with this?"

"No, the song was his taunt. All the rest is him trying to figure himself out."

"And do what when he does?"

Anna shrugged, "I don't know and that terrifies me."

They rode around a circuit and stopped at the top, John's fingers tapping on the bar for a moment before he spoke. "We'll catch him, you know. All we need is a face and we've got the bastard. We plaster it everywhere and we get him."

"Or Henry does."

"Him sucker punching me from behind aside-"

"You're really not going to let that go, are you?"

"No." John rubbed his hands together and continued. "That aside, I'm not sure he's wrong about this being the perfect way to kill the bugger. He did kill that poor girl in York-"

"Rose."

"And now he's dropped ten more bodies here. Bodies, I'll admit, who don't have snipers for friends but someone somewhere still cared about them and that's enough for me to think that they deserve for a nice bullet to go between the bastard's eyes to set all right with the world again."

"Did you ever get the bullet you wanted between the eyes of the drug lord who got your mother killed?"

"No." John bit the inside of his cheek and Anna frowned. "She divorced me and ran away to Scotland before I could get all the evidence gathered."

"What?"

"Yeah, you wouldn't believe the inquest when they found out." John tried to lean back in his chair but they both started when it rocked a little too far for their liking. "I had to answer the same questions twenty time before they all finally realized I'd never shared details of the case and that it really was the oddest coincidence."

"Your ex-wife was a drug lord?"

"Yep." John rubbed his gloved hands together, meeting Anna's eyes. "Like I said, it's funny how the actions of one person affect the lives of so many."

"Did they get her in Scotland?"

"Not as far as I know but I got removed from that case for obvious reasons."

Anna did not respond, only gasping slightly when the Ferris wheel moved again to deposit them at the bottom. She handed over a few more bills to the still grumbling woman, and walked with John back toward the precinct. Before they could cross the road there, John put a hand on her arm.

"I do hope we're both on the same page now. It's been a rough ride- and all my fault- but I do want to make sure we're resolved."

"Why do I feel like the next comment you're going to make is say that all further discussions we have will be through a solicitor?"

"I'm…" John hung his head, snorting a chuckle that Anna shared with him. "I'm not doing very well with this am I?"

"I'd say we're about evenly matched in this one." Anna took John's hand with hers. "We're both a little more broken by what we've been through than I think we'd like to admit."

"As evidenced by the fact that all of our conversations revolve around our work?" John sighed, swinging their hands a moment. "I wish we could go back to when we were just two strangers not sharing drinks in a bar. When we couldn't talk about our jobs and didn't have all this hanging over our heads. Back when it was simpler."

"And in that scenario, do we repeat the awkward moment when, the next morning, we realized we were the problems we feared the night before but couldn't say?" Anna examined their hands, staying on the corner just away from the office. "Or do we realize that maybe a chance meeting in a pub was a bit more than that?"

John stepped closer and Anna noted how their breath billowed together. "Would you want it to be more than that?"

"I don't think that two people meet by chance. I don't think anything really happens by chance."

"Then I'd like to propose another indecent thing." John tugged their hands up so he could kiss over her gloves. "We're not in a romantic comedy where we fight until the halfway point of the movie and then decide it's all unresolved sexual tension but I'm not entirely sure my animosity wasn't based in something deeper."

"Something like the idea that we wanted what we realized was a dream and we were more than a bit miffed it wasn't what we thought?"

"Something like that."

Anna took the final step closer to him. "Than I think I'd like to hear you indecent proposal."

"You're sure?"

"I enjoyed the last one. Why wouldn't I enjoy this one?"

"Even after I've been a massive dick to you?"

"Even after that."

"Why?"

"Because," Anna grinned, "While there's no denying you've been a huge dick to me and about this whole situation, you've also got a large dick and you know exactly how to use it. I'm a pragmatist, if nothing else."

"Then may I invite you back to mine?"

"That would be best since the Crawleys have got me staying at theirs and it's a bit overrun by all the wedding preparations."

"Not to mention we wouldn't want my partner knowing we actually resolved all that tension the night before his wedding in the same house."

"Or your boss finding out the exact same thing." Anna slipped her hands free of John's. "I'm quite the screamer."

"Yes you are."

It took almost no time at all for them to sort out their desks. Anna quickly organized her piles, wrote relevant notes about her work on sticky notes she then stuck to the tottering stacks before grabbing her things. They barely made it to the door before John tried to grab for her hand. But he missed and Anna caught it on the upswing.

He paused and Anna used the moment to get on her tiptoes to kiss him. John staggered back to the wall and her bag swung on her arm to knock the light switch. The crack broke them apart and they stared wide-eyed at the broken fixture before John shuffled them out the door. Anna tried to turn back, to assess the damage a bit more, but John directed her down the street and through the turns toward his place.

"The cameras probably already caught it." He breathed, hurrying them along. "And we'll get a bit of flack for it but not as much as we'll get for making it worse."

"You're alright with Chief Crawley knowing we were snogging so hard we broke a light switch?" Anna's breath puffed about her in a cloud as they waited at a corner for a light before John guided them across.

"He'll be angry about other things come Monday." John laughed, "Like the fact his second-best detective is deflowering his favorite daughter."

"Pretty sure he deflowered her a long time ago."

"But now Robert knows it's happening." John held up a finger as they entered his street. "That's a different matter entirely."

"About as different as your neighbors'll be when we make a racket with our deflowering process tonight?"

"Most of them are half-deaf anyway and those that aren't are all deaf. If their hearing aids aren't in they won't hear anything." John unlocked his door, shuffling Anna inside. "I promise, there won't be any noise complaints around here tonight."

Anna pushed John against the door to close it, her hands going around the back of his neck the moment he landed solidly on both feet. "I sincerely hope that's not going to stay true."

Her bag hit the floor and their coats and gloves came off in a hurry that left a trail of rumpled coats, mangled gloves, and a scarf dangling from the bannister after almost strangling John. His hands tugged and yanked at her jacket, one of the sleeves half pulled out in Anna's effort to extricate herself from it, to roam more freely over her torso. As she freed him from his loose tie and looser jacket, Anna enjoyed a moment to just kiss him.

All the emotions from he case, from the chase, and from their out-of-step march rolled from her in a moment as John's tongue edged along her lip. She opened to him and groaned into his mouth when he tasted every part of her he could reach. When she went to take a breath John almost tumbled them down the stairs as he pressed Anna into the wall to attack her neck with licks, nips, and kisses that forced them both onto uneven footing.

She pushed him back enough to kick her shoes down the stairs with distinct thumps. His shoes, caught on the laces, forced John to catch himself on the stairs but they came off in another tumble and his belt whipped out to land on the bannister and slide down until the scarf caught it. Once there they both maneuvered with and around one another to get toward John's room.

The wall outside his door offered another place for John to kiss her again. Her fingers threaded in his hair and Anna pulled him tightly toward her to better explore his mouth for herself. John's hands, never idle, worked her button-down shirt from her trousers and slid underneath to pull her closer to him with a hand on her lower back. Anna bent into the motion and tried to wrap herself sinuously around him with a leg over his hip. A leg that John held to keep her in place as he pressed her into the wall so she could feel him against her when he shunted his hips into hers.

Anna let out a moan, breaking the kiss to try and meet John's motions from her position but trapped between him and the wall left all the balls in John's court. His thumbs brushed over the skin of her hips as he drew his hands out to unbutton the delicate fastenings holding her shirt to her. He even managed the cuffs before dropping the shirt to the floor. It fluttered there, the first real exposing move of the evening, and Anna waited for John's response.

She need not have worried. It was exactly as it had been the first night, when she shed her bra, and even in the dark of the house Anna could see the glint in John's eyes. He lowered his mouth to the skin left out of the cups and sucked a line of red there. A line he used to trace around the fabric before his hands sculpted up her back to play with the clasp.

Once it loosened, the cups hung limply over her breasts and John's hands took up a more serious occupation. He filled his hands with her, massaging and kneading to the tune of her whimpers and keens of pleasure, and then his mouth when his lips wrapped over the newly exposed skin. Anna tossed the bra aside to allow John all the access he could want and then clawed the wall when he sucked her nipples into his mouth one at a time.

Every patch of her skin, from trouser waistband to her shoulders, took the affection of his lips or his hands until Anna practically vibrated with the promise of more to come. She pushed him back, gaining access to his wrinkled shirt, and pulled the buttons loose with enough force to send a few pinging and dangling from the material. But John joined her in the rush to remove the shirt to then press her back to the wall and rub his chest over hers so the hair tickled her sensitive skin and puckered nipples.

Her nails scored over his shoulders and side, tugging him closer to her, and Anna handled his mouth by covering it securely with her own. Their hands and arms struck and bumped against one another in a rush to free one another of the bonds of their trousers. When they both tangled and bunched about their ankles, John and Anna managed the acrobatics necessary to free their feet and pressed into John's room.

One of his arms wrapped Anna's waist and tossed her to the bed. She barely bounced on the mattress before John covered her body with his and lifted her leg to slot himself right next to her. They shifted and thrust their hips, trying to build friction they both needed but could not manage from their positions. Anna shoved at John's boxers, forcing them down his legs enough to expose him to the wrapping grip of her hand while he tangled her knickers.

Between the two of them, acting the part of randy teenagers in the evening's tableau, they finally discarded the last vestiges of fabric left separating them. Anna slipped back over the bed, perpendicular to the wall, and yanked John closer to her so his lips could meet hers. While their tongues tangled his hand worked between her legs to slip and slide over her folds and press forward so he could get a finger inside her.

Anna tightened her legs around him, fingers forming claws around his cheeks to try and express the sensations through a kiss she would not break. John's palm shifted to rub and press at her clit when he added another finger and Anna's legs opened to allow him deeper. She broke the kiss, grasping for the sheets under her as she gasped for air and still John drove deeper before adding another finger.

The idea that she might boil alive from the inside out, her blood on fire and thundering in her ears to match the swift gallop of her heart, almost had Anna crying out for a reprieve. But she instead sobbed his name and whatever guidance she could manage to give someone already quite adept at managing her pleasure. And when he finally helped her fall from the edge, Anna screamed out his name as promised.

It took no more warning for John to lift her leg and slide himself inside her. Anna tightened all her muscles, holding him where he was so John's eyes scrunched shut at the wet cling of her around him. His expression only made her wish she had the energy to smile when she tilted her hips upward, releasing her hold, and allowed him to slide even deeper. But whatever thoughts of sweet torture she had planned were ripped away in an instant as John withdrew before slamming into her as deeply as he could go.

They both paused, shuddering and quivering together at the depth they discovered. He held himself over her, arms shaking from their modified plank position on either side of her head, and Anna moved one hand to his hip and raised her leg on the other to hold him. It gave her the leverage she needed to wrap both legs around his waist and get her hand around the back of his neck so she could pull his lips to kiss hers.

The pace slowed, but only for a second, as they adjusted to one another. Once they found a rhythm John offered no quarter and Anna asked for none. She tilted her hips so he hit her clit on every thrust and slipped a hand to grab the flesh of his ass to grind herself better against him when he struck deeply inside her. John drew to the very edge, teasing her with short strokes until she whined and he quieted her complaints by rutting against her until she sobbed toward another orgasm.

His fingers danced over her skin and his lips closed over her breast to send her crashing over the edge. Anna's fingers dug into his skin, trembling when he released his control for the frantic frenzy that overtook him until he finished. Even the weight of him on her only offered additional comfort to the glorious haze around her.

But when John's weight proved a bit much she shifted and adjusted enough so he rolled off her. They lay together in the dark, lit only by the streetlamps that muffled and danced through the curtains over his windows, breathing together until they stabilized as one. His fingers intertwined with hers and Anna drew them to her mouth to lay a kiss over his knuckles.

"Do you regret it?" She frowned and shifted to try and see his face in the dark.

"What?"

"Do you regret it?" John motioned between them, the rumpled blankets tucking and bending under them. "If it was just to let off steam or whatever then it's what-"

Anna's lips came down on his, her head over him and holding herself there until a tremor in her arms forced her away from him. She waited until his eyes refocused on hers to speak. "I don't regret it."

"None of it?"

"Not a single moment." Anna snorted, "Although I'll admit I wish it hadn't taken you so long to get over yourself and stop being a dick."

"But you got it in the end."

"I got it very nicely." Anna kissed him again, brushing a bit of hair from his forehead. "We had to destroy a few illusions first but I got it."

"And we all know how much we hate to destroy our carefully crafted illusions, don't we?" John helped to shift them both so they lay along the bed, tucking themselves underneath the covers when they shivered. "We never did end up getting food."

"But we've definitely cleared our heads." Anna punched the pillow under her head to look at John more closely. "Although I do hope it was more than that for you."

"If I wanted to clear my head I'd just splash some cold water on my face." John shook his head, face muffling in the pillow as he did. "I don't usually have sex with coworkers to clear my head."

"It does rather complicate things doesn't it?" Anna sighed, her fingers going to tangle with his where his hand lay between them. "I don't suppose you've got another indecent proposal to solve the issue of the last two."

"We could keep it a secret." John shrugged, "Since you're only here as a consultant you're not technically breaking any fraternization rules if we keep seeing one another."

"And what if we decide we don't?" Anna made sure he did not turn away. "You didn't handle the aftermath of the first time very well."

"No, I didn't, but this time is different." John risked a finger forward, stroking over her hair before slipping it back behind her shoulder. "This time we're completely bare to one another."

"In every sense of the word." Anna edged closer to him. "I hope we can always be that way."

"We're working toward the same goal and as long as we're both committed to telling one another the truth this time around…" John's hand slipped down her arm and under the blanket to dance over her hip. "I don't see why we couldn't at least try to see where it goes."

"Alright then." Anna smiled at him, her hand covering his. "Let's see where it goes."


	6. Marriage for Measure

John opened his eyes, hauling in a deep breath as he watched Anna's side and shoulders rise and fall with her gently breathing. He squinted and turned over his shoulder, grunting at the pull of muscles in his back, and noted the blinking time on the clock before settling back into his pillow. Sighing to himself, he reached out to delicately brush his fingers through her hair to shift a hair from Anna's back. As his fingers moved over her skin, she shuddered slightly and the blanket shifted down her back to expose more of it to John's gaze.

Taking another look to confirm the time on the clock, grinning a bit to himself as he confirmed their time, and leaned forward to kiss over Anna's back. The purring noise she let out gave John encouragement to continue kissing down her spine until he reached the rise of her ass. John grabbed the blanket and flicked it back to expose the rest of Anna's skin and she shivered in the flash of chill. But as John continued caressing his lips down her legs she settled again.

The heating skin under his lips guided John to lift her leg and trace more kisses toward the inside of her thigh. Anna twisted slightly and John worked her knee over his shoulder as he traced his lips higher. High enough that Anna's body tightened and her knee bent more securely over John's shoulder with each quest of his mouth closer to her folds. Folds he took into his mouth to suck deeply.

Anna jerked under his care, her voice rising into a huffing cry as her eyes fluttered open. John kept his fingers holding carefully to her thigh, to better control the angle of his tongue, and met Anna's eyes with his own. Her eyes blinked as she tried to take in the sight between her legs but John did not give her the time to fully comprehend the actions until her body tightened again under his tongue.

John licked the length of her, tasting and torturing her with gentle strokes of his tongue through her folds before beating steadily at her clit. One deep suck left her howling out as she leaked around his face but John just drank around her until she settled to a steady vibration in his arms. Arms he adjusted as he slid out from between her legs.

He spread back on the bed, his arms behind his head, and grinned as Anna attempted to breathe at the head of the bed. "Good morning."

Her eyes flicked toward the clock before meeting his again. "It's not morning. Morning is where the sun is coming up."

"Not that you'll get that much here in the winter." John sighed, "I do hope you don't mind my imposition."

"I'd wake up at any hour of the day for that kind of imposition." She turned fully onto her back, lifting up slightly to look him over. "You've got a bit of a problem to solve here."

John pressed his shoulders into the mattress and lifted up to see where Anna's hand sculpted down his thigh. He shrugged, settling back onto the mattress, "I can handle it. I spent most of my teenage years in various states of aroused so…"

"But if you don't have to endure it." Anna let her hand continue brushing down his leg to massage around the base of his growing arousal. "Then why should you? Why should you suffer?"

"Are you making an indecent proposal Ms. Smith?"

Anna curved her lips into a smile. "Why not? You're the only one who can make indecent proposals."

"I never said I was."

"Well then," Anna shifted herself sideways, her hair falling over John's skin to tickle and drape where it would only excite him further. "I guess I'll just take the initiative this time."

"I did wake you up."

"Not as up as you'll be."

She swallowed him in a moment and John's hips bucked off the bed. Her lips closed around him to create more suction and she suckled slowly to his head and let her tongue delve into the slit before pulling off. John gasped for air as she did, seeking a moment to regain his senses, but Anna offered no reprieve before inhaling him again so she could graze with her teeth and wrap with her tongue.

John's chest rose and fell, caving all the way to his stomach before trying to inflate again but nothing he did could fill his lungs enough to not blacken the edge of his vision. Every motion left him unable to focus or comprehend anything while his fingers dug divots into the sheets under him. But with the edge of his senses intact, John reached for Anna's leg. She slid on the sheets, breaking from him for a moment to gaze back over her shoulder at him, but her eyes rolled back into her head as John positioned her legs on either side of his head.

The nip of her teeth around the base of his erection distracted John for a moment, his fingers trembling against the skin of her thighs, but he brought her hips down with a bruising grip to let his tongue stroke over her again. Anna broke from her hold on him, raising up to arch her back as she ground her core down on his mouth. John sucked deeper, running over the paths he traced minutes ago to enjoy the taste of her all over again as her nails bit into his hips.

But his moment of victory faltered when Anna leaned down again, her legs spreading around his head to bring her closer to his tongue, and took him in her mouth again. With her fingers massaging deep into his thighs, holding tightly to his hips, and licking at his base to his sack and back, John could barely continue with his attempts to bring her to a rise faster than he responded to her. Even the addition of his fingers to find those spots inside her that would send her over the edge only seemed to speed him up as quickly as it did her.

He thrust into her mouth, gritting his teeth a moment to stop himself falling under her persuasions, and lifted his mouth to suck at her clit. Anna's mouth pulled away from him, her nails digging furrows into his thighs, and she shattered around him. As her body shook in his grip, John shifted from under her and slipped her forward so her sensitive nerves drew along his arousal. They jerked together for a moment before Anna lifted on her knees to take him inside her.

Holding tightly around her waist, keeping her back tight to his chest, John bent his legs to thrust into her. She shifted and ground into his hips as they moved together to try and find a way to bring them over the edge again. John's hands moved over her torso, massaging her breasts to send her into a series of spasms in his arms that tightened the cling of her vaginal walls around him. And when his other arm turned to bring his fingers to dance at her clit, running over himself when he withdrew before another deep thrust, Anna twisted and bounced on him.

John tried to bury himself as deeply inside her as he could, kissing and nipping over her shoulders but Anna's slick, sopping heat drenched and scorched him until he came in a rush. She followed in the stutters of his motions, rocking and gyrating on him until her cries echoed and merged in the confines of his room. They shifted and bucked into one another until John collapsed back onto the bed.

His feet hit the headboard and he tried to move as Anna rolled to the side. Pushing a hand through her hair as she leaned up on her elbow, she grinned at him. "With that kind of workout I think I'm ready for this wedding."

"I hope so." John closed his eyes a moment before sitting up again. "We just…"

"Just?" Anna clawed through her hair before frowning at him. "Just what?"

"We didn't use anything. Not tonight or just now so…" John shrugged, managing to sit up and look down at her. "Not that I was entirely responsible in the moment but… If you're not…"

"I've got a pretty strident regimen." Anna shifted, sitting up as well. "It's the kind of thing you look into when you've gone through what I have."

"I don't doubt you and I hope you don't-"

"I'm not going to do either of us the disservice of letting you finish some noble attempt at saying you don't think I'm a slut and that you would support whatever baby could come of an unprotected sexual event." Anna slid off the bed, "Especially since I'm sure you mean every word."

"You do have a habit of making my attempts at being noble feel hollow and rehearsed." John moved off his bed, pulling at the covers to get them into place as Anna gathered their clothes from the floor. "It's a bit of a mood killer."

"It's a bad habit of mine." Anna held up their clothes. "I've spent too long taking care of myself to allow someone else to take care of me."

"You don't want anyone to take care of you?"

"Would you?"

John shrugged, catching the pants she threw at him. "I think it'd be nice to have someone to rely on occasionally."

"I guess you and I have very different reactions to the betrayals we've suffered in our love lives." Anna sighed, "I think my shirt's in your hall."

"And mine's completely ruined."

"You've only got to reattach a few buttons."

"No time for that now." John pointed to the clock. "How much time do you need to get ready for the wedding?"

"I'm a bridesmaid."

John shook his head, "That doesn't answer my question really."

Anna laughed, "I guess not. Aren't you one of Branson's groomsmen?"

"Yes but I just need a shower, a comb, and a suit they already rented for me." John shrugged, "If you're willing to wait then I can get ready and take you over the Crawley's house."

"It'd basically tell them all I spent the night at yours."

"They'd figure that out when I try to snog you in the coatroom."

Anna lifted a shoulder as she worked her shirt over her arms. "I think it's tradition that the bridesmaids get the dresses ripped off by the teeth of some randy groomsmen so I'm not opposed to that."

"Good." John grabbed his things. "Because I'm looking forward to it."

"Get yourself sorted and I'll see if you'll be the groomsman worthy of getting his teeth into my dress." Anna sat on the edge of the bed as John gathered his things. "It's a nice dress and I need to be selective about who gets to rip it off my body."

"Makes me want to put in a bit more effort." John held this things, weighing them in his hands. "You don't mind if I shower and change then or-"

Anna tilted her head to check his clock. "I'll just nap. It's not until two so I've got time to get ready."

"I thought you intimated that it would take forever for you to get ready."

Anna shrugged, "It's all about motivation. I want to see what I'm buying."

John snorted, "I won't take too long."

He hurried into the shower, leaving his destroyed shirt on the counter after hanging his suit on the door. Within ten minutes, and skin both scorched and frozen by the temperamentality of his shower, John stood before the mirror carefully combing his hair and applying his cologne before shaving. The door cracked and he turned to see Anna, holding her phone out. They mimed at each other a moment before she pressed the button for speaker and left the door open to allow steam to escape and her to enter.

"Could you repeat what you just said?" She held the phone toward John as he leaned closer to her while continuing to shave.

"I'm saying that we finally identified the woman we found at the latest crime scene." The voice on the other end of the phone crackled and John frowned.

"Branson?"

"John?"

"What are you doing? You're getting married today!"

"And if I didn't get this finished then I wouldn't be alive to marry Sybil."

"If you don't get your ass to getting ready then Sybil'll kill you." Anna pulled the phone back. "But what's the name of the woman?"

"She was a prostitute who worked that street often enough that we finally found a neighbor willing to admit that he knew she was called Ethel." Anna looked up at John, her eyebrows going up as Branson continued. "With those details we found her record."

"Solicitation?" John suggested, bringing his razor down his chin and checking over his face before patting his cheeks with aftershave. "Or something else?"

"For the moment just solicitation but there's a suspicion that she was linked with a man named Charles Blake."

Anna shrugged at John as he sighed, leaning on the counter. "The CI who turned on us to the Russians?"

"I was never sure of that." John snorted, "Don't go throwing stones. There is a possibility, given the fact Ms. Parks's also got a drug charge that puts her in possession of some of the product an old friend of yours used to sell."

John drew a hand over his face. "What else has our tech genius unveiled?"

"A location for Mr. Blake. I'll text it to Anna."

"See you at the wedding." Anna said into the speaker before turning off her phone. "Want to go on a little adventure?"

"Before the wedding?" John shook his head, "I'm not suicidal."

"It won't take long."

"Says the woman who, the last time she investigated a location, got us knocked unconscious and rescued embarrassingly by the rest of our precinct."

Anna lifted her hands, "I admit, not my finest hour but-"

"Anna." John faced her, "I promise you that if we get through this wedding in one piece and no one dies there, the first order of business'll be to track down Charles Blake and try and find out more about the drugs in Ms. Parks's system."

"When he referenced drugs was he talking about-"

John nodded, "Branson's not exactly one to let things go when he could milk them for the rest of my natural life."

"Sounds cruel."

"It's only fair." John gave a smile, "I'm the one who brings up the time Robert almost shot him when he found out Branson was dating Sybil."

Anna scooted onto the counter as John walked around her to get on his suit. "Who is Charles Blake to you?"

"He was a CI who, at the time, swore he wanted to help us take down the arm of the Russian mafia here in Dublin but," John tucked his head into an undershirt and pulled his pants on under his towel before snapping it free to hang over the shower rod. "I found out he was playing us for a higher position in their organization. Burned me bad and it wasn't exactly helpful that it came on the heels of me trying to prove that I wasn't a traitor to the cause when the case with my ex-wife became public knowledge."

Anna sucked the insides of her cheeks a moment, "Do you remember the part of our deal where we were going to honest with one another?"

John held at the collar of his shirt, pulling it over his shoulders so it hung straight before buttoning down the line. "Are you doubting my honesty?"

"No." Anna shook her head and cringed, "But Charles Blake didn't betray you for a higher position in the Russian mob."

"Don't tell me." John finished with the buttons and went for his cuffs. "He's another of your agents or whatever."

"He's part of Special Branch, yes, and we told him to burn the bridge with you so he could get us more information."

"It's an internal matter."

"It's an international matter since the Russian mafia is working a human trafficking ring from Kiev to Kansas and we're a critical part of the transfer processes." Anna stopped, holding up a hand. "Okay, I realize that we're not on the same line as far as importance and I'm not diminishing the work you're doing. I'm just saying what orders came down to him and from whom. That's what I know."

"Do you know Blake the way you know Talbot?"

Anna shook her head, "I've never met him. But I could try and arrange a meeting through his case officer. It'll make for an easier exchange since they know your face and might assume you're going for recontact and kill you."

"And you're the better option?"

She only spread her arms, "I'm an attractive woman. What'll think I can do?"

"If they knew anything about you then they'll know what you could do." John jumped into his trousers, tucking the tails of his shirt into the waistband. "I do."

"I don't plan on sharing those details with them." Anna hopped off the counter. "And you do clean up well."

"I've not even put on my tie." John reached around her to snag his watch from the counter. "Call your contacts and get a meeting with Blake. By the time you're done I can drive us to the Crawley house."

"Done." Anna opened her phone, eyeing John as he finished. "Just so you know, you'll definitely get a chance at my dress."

John snapped his teeth together as Anna left the bathroom with the phone to her ear, "Yes, this is Anna Smith. Service number eight-twenty-three-juno-foxtrot-delta-alpha. Requesting contact with the case officer working Charles Blake in Dublin. Yes I'll hold for transfer."

Finishing with his tie and accouterments, John exited the bathroom just as Anna held up a sticky-note on her finger. "Got it."

"Perfect. Now lets get this wedding finished so we can find your psycho."

"Not sure I enjoy the accusation that he's my psycho but I appreciate the sentiment." Anna grabbed her things as they moved down the hall, sorting through their coats and gloves by the door. "You'd think we hadn't had sex in forever."

"Not like that, no." John pushed his arms into his sleeves, unbuttoning his coat to allow for more maneuverability before he wrapped his scarf over his throat. "But I thought you were excellent, if that's any consolation."

"Not sure I need consoling about it." Anna pushed her fingers together to secure her gloves. "But I'll take your compliment."

"I'm not exactly the best at giving them out, am I?"

"You're trying and that's what counts."

"Why does that sound like what women say when they have to fake their orgasms so a guy doesn't feel shitty about himself?" John shook his head, handling his keys. "All ready?"

Anna checked her pockets. "I think I'm leaving with everything I came through your door with."

"That does include your dignity, right?"

"I never lost my dignity in this house." Anna winked at him, "I've not had anyone give me three orgasms in a row so I guess that's something worth the risk of all the stink-eye glares I'll get when I come through the Crawley doors in yesterday's clothes with you on my arm."

"I could wait five minutes."

"I never came home last night and if I know Sybil, which I admittedly acknowledge that I don't know her as well as I do Mary, she didn't sleep last night."

"Too nervous?"

"It's not every day that we have the favorite Crawley child marrying a rumored anarchist."

"That was a long time ago." John defended, bracing himself as they hurried out the door to his car. "The weather's only getting worse."

"I've heard that Winter only loses its grip on Spring when it's snatched from its cold, dead hands." Anna ducked into John's car, shivering as he turned the engine over to get the heater going. "But at least the wedding's inside."

"They almost made it sound like a tragedy when they had to use their house."

"The cleanup'll be terrible."

John waved Anna's argument away, pulling into the light morning traffic to drive them to the Crawley house. "Because they can't afford the cleaning crew the way they hired the decorators and the set-up crew."

"That almost sounds like jealousy for their money."

"I'm not jealous of any man's money." John shook his head at her comment. "Every person eats at a table or in front of a TV, sleeps in a bed, usually has a sofa, and uses a kitchen. Size of those things doesn't matter because the bigger it is the more you've got to clean. That's all that means."

"What a prospective." Anna leaned her elbow on the door to look at him. "Are you truly not jealous of them?"

"No."

"Not at all?"

"Are you?"

Anna shrugged, "I was jealous that there are things Mary never had to worry about that I did when we were growing up but now I realize she just had different worries than I did. Worries I'd never want."

"Like the idea that if we all put our troubles in a pile we'd simply pick up our own again because we realized we couldn't manage anyone else's."

"Exactly." Anna sighed, "I wouldn't wish my troubles on anyone so maybe it's a bit more generous than just that we're scared of the challenges of others."

"Maybe a combination of both?" John worked them out of the city and toward the suburbs. "But I'm not jealous of Robert for the same reasons you think differently of Mary. I've served with him and I don't envy the kind of pressure he's under or the things he's had to endure."

"Then I guess the best we can do, for our friends in this case, is to be there for them." Anna straightened in the seat. "We're here."

John pulled the car around the house and parked in the back. "Figured out what we'll say?"

"Late night at the office?" Anna suggested before John shook his head and pointed out her window. "What?"

She turned to see the group of Crawleys gathered on the stoop. "I think they already know."

Anna cringed, "I think they do too."


End file.
